The expansion pack to Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords (Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar) has a new beta up.  Gamers can still pre-order and get the beta.  This build should be just about ready to go other than omissions (i.e. unhooked up features). It shouldn't crash or be unstable.

Here are some (but not all) the changes:

** MAJOR ADDITIONS **

+ When a civilization is killed, it will give its remaining military ships to either the pirates or another civ.  Non-military ships are destroyed.
   + If the civ is good, it will first try to divvy out its remaining military ships to the civs with which it has warm or higher relations,  if there are no warm or higher civs, it will give its ships to the pirates
   + If the civ is neutral, it will divvy half of its remaining military ships to civs with which it has warm or higher relations, and the other other half to the pirates.  If no civs with warm or higher relations are found, all of the remaining military ships are given to the pirates
   + If the civ is evil, all of the remaining military ships will be given to the pirates
   + A message pops up that explains what happened and to whom the ships were given

+ Added some new improvements.
  +Research Coordination Center: 1 per planet, 25% Research bonus, requires Research Academy tech
  +Food Distribution Center: 1 per planet, 25% food production bonus, requires Xeno Farm Const. III tech
  +Fertility Clinic: 25% population growth bonus, requires Fertililty Acceleration tech
  +Counter Espionage Center = makes the planet it is built on immune to agents, one per planet.

+ Trade routes get more valuable each year (significantly more valuable). This will allow more strategies involving spies and trading.

+ When a trade between players is enacted, AI player won't see any player for 8 more weeks (any player not just human). This should dramatically change the way trade occurs between players. Previously, the AI traded techs like crazy. 

+ When a war begins between a player and another player, it will last
minimum of 16 weeks (turns).

+ New In-Game music added.

+ Each major civ will be guaranteed at least 3 asteroid fields in their star system

+ Min and max scale amount in ship designer adjusted to 10% - 250% range (Formerly 25% - 175%)

+ Research screen: you can now select individual milestone techs.  This will display their data in the context area above the tech tree

+ ESPIONAGE_ABILITY was not properly up since we changed the way espionage works after Dread Lords.  It is now hooked up in the code to give you the appropriate bonus to espionage spending.

+ Added 12 new Events to the game

** SPECIAL ABILITIES **

+ Super Diplomat
  + Diplomacy Super Ability gets real teeth in the diplomacy (negotiation) screen.
  + Player with Super Diplomacy ability can speak to aliens twice as often as regular players.
  + Super Diplomats are somewhat better at getting people to help them out when at war.
  + Super Diplomats are somewhat better at getting good deals in trade.
  + Human Super Diplomats don't have to worry about the "advanced weapons" limitation on tech trading. AI will trade advanced weapons with the Super Diplomat if they have enough cash.
  + Other players like the Super Diplomat more so than other races (the super diplomat rarely will end up being in a war that they didn't themselves start).

+ Super Manipulator
  + Super Manipulator ability put into effect in the diplomacy screen, can easilly get players to go to war with one another.
  + Super Manipulators are massively better at getting other players to go to war with people who have annoyed them.  Rule of thumb: Don't tick off the super manipulator player or you'll be sorry. Keep them happy.

+ Super Hivers
  + Now start with a 20% range bonus, opposed to unlimied range

+ Super Spies
  + A race with SUPER_ABILITY_SPY not only gets an agent to start, but also will have the "Counter Espionage" tech unlocked

+ Super Breeder
  + The super breeder code was commented out, so I uncommented it and adjusted for the new description

+ Super Traders
  + Added 2x trade revenue for super traders.

+ Super Annhilator
  + Korath should be building spore ship (but still needs work)

** NEW MEGA EVENTS **

+ MEGA EVENT: Disease event
  +  added tech for Disease Cure in techtree.xml
  +  GetAbility() returns 0 if this event is active and Disease Cure is not
known

+ MEGA EVENT: Corruption event
  +  Trade revenue is multiplied by 3 in
classCivilization::CalcRevenueFromTrade
  +  Taxes collected are divided by 2 in classColony::CalcTaxesCollected

+ MEGA EVENT: Tourism event
  +  in CalcTourismRevenue, the end result (before UP laws) is multiplied by
5.

+ MEGA EVENT: Organized crime event
  + in EndTurn.cpp, where the event is created, it cycles through all the
colonies and adds an agent from RACE_PIRATES to each colony using
AIGetBestPlanetImprovement to determine the most effective location.

+ MEGA EVENT: Somber event
  +  changed it so that the CalcMorale() function calls the one with the
parameters so that we don't have two redundant functions that need to be
updated
  +  in CalcMorale, the morale ability is halved before it is applied to the
calculations. 

+ MEGA EVENT: Subspace tear event
  +  Starting with the next turn, the max move for all ships is 4 (it's a
constant at the top of starship.cpp)

+ MEGA EVENT: Super tourism event - could use some better text, but I was running dry
on creativity.
  + Tourism revenue is multiplied by 10 in CalcTourismRevenue, but does not
stack with the Tourism event.
  + in CalcMorale, fTaxModifier is multiplied by 2 if this event is active.

** MISC ADDITIONS / TWEAKS / FIXES **

+ Disabled "Spy" button on planet context window if the selected planet has a
counter espionage center

+ Created a new popup message if (while in place agent mode) you try to select a planet with a counter espionage center on it, which'll give you an appropriate message about how the planet is immune to foreign agents.
 
+ Made it so the "Place Agent" button is disabled on planets with a counter espionage center.

+ Put a check for counter espionage center in AICiv so it skips planets that can't have agents.

+ Lots of little tweaks to trade values to make trading more interesting

+ AI better at upgrading asteroid mines

+ Dark Avatar game year starts in 2226 now.

+ Altarian AI will increase tax rate further than previous.

+ Drengin-derived AI personalities now have new planetary improvement algorithm -- for deciding which planet improvements to build.

+ Bug fixed whereby scouts would think planets were out of range when they weren't. Should help AI (all of them) scout better.

+ Drengin-derived AI players more intelligent in picking techs to research.

+ Anomalies don't' give as much money.

+ More anomalies overall

+ Engines use more space on ships. A lot more space. Won't affect most
players but for players who were making ships that could travel 40 moves per
turn, the engines are now too big (it wasn't supposed to end up like that
anyway, people get better at the game than we ever did <g>).

+ Fusion, Anti-Matter, and Quantum power plants are now MUCH more powerful.
(25%/50%/100%).

+ Race values now re-balanced.

+ Some tech costs tweaked.

+ added Sector label to sector string in the main gamescreen

+ changed it so that CheckForDefections does not try to immediately update graphics and overlays for the asteroids and mining bases, which causes the corrupted textures

+ changed it so that the whole minimap gets painted with the range color if the event is active. 

+ Finished the new Scenario window, and enabled access to it via the ‘Details’  button in the Galaxy window.

+ Disabled the "Spy" button in the planet context window if you do not have any spies to place.

+ The previous and next planet buttons on the Place Agent Screen will now make sure they don't allow the player to view a planet with a counter espionage center on it.

+ Made it so the shortcut key for the Place Agent Screen will cause a popup message if you don't have any agents to place

+ Made it so the max percent of income for espionage is 10% higher for a civ with the super spy ability.  The value of 10 is easily tweak-able since I put it in DEFS.hpp here: #define SUPERSPY_MAX_ESPIONAGE_RATE_BONUS 10

+ Changed the description of the Super Spy ability so that it says you "start out with the Counter Espionage tech" rather than "are immune to agents"

+ Planet habitability production penalties are now in effect.  For example, if you only have the level 1 colonization ability, you will get 50% production.

+ Fixed bug that caused ships to not be able to move (all tiles were out of range)

+ Fixed bug in combat code that caused projectile defenses to not work correctly

+ Planet sizes for habitable planets on the main map are now based on the planet’s quality (with small degree of randomness)

+ Auto-mining now ignores fog of war to be consistent with auto-survey (It was confusing to some players why the ship could not find the asteroids)

+ Fixed mouse bug with combo boxes.

+ Fixed a crash discovered by a user that occurred if you select NOTHING to build on the shipyard and press one of the rotate buttons.
 
+ New race themes for the Korath and Krynn added.
 
+ Race Abilities setup screen tweaked (Inherant Ability display, Special Ability spinner, and Total Abilities list).
 
+ Special Ability listed in the 'Choose your Race' setup screen.
 
+ Personality Setup sliders now have a 'Middle' notch.

+ When saving a custom race, a new dialog appears and asks for the race name and description before saving it

+ If a component has no flavor text or description, there will be no bubble for it in the ship intelligence report screen

+ Changed hard-coded points available from 5 to 10

+ Ability points listed in customize race abilities screen is now taken from the “CustomizationPoints” field in the race config.

+ Race Selection Wnd: special ability "info" button shows paragraph detailing the effects givent by selected ability

+ Custom Personality Wnd: Values for sliders now displayed

+ Checked in GalaxyWnd.dxpack that fixes z-order with custom map combobox

+ Made it so that you can load Dread Lords scenarios and custom maps in DA

+ Made it so that the personality tab is disabled for the player race, even if it's a custom race

+ Made it so that you can't change the super ability for the canned races

+ disabled the custom map and scenario comboboxes if playing a metaverse game
 
+ If you choose not to overwrite a ship design, the game will now return you to the ship designer so you can change the name

+ Fixed bug in message that pops up when the player is a Super Organizer and is attacked, and other civs come to his aid

+ Added two new tag names that can be used in planetImprovements.xml, both are a percentage value
  +<PopulationGrowthBonus></PopulationGrowthBonus>
  +<FoodProductionBonus></FoodProductionBonus>

+ made it so population growth bonus and food production bonus values show up correctly on the planet screen, improvement summary screen, and place agent screen

+ Fixed formatting of values in the planet list to use %, bc/week, and population (T, M, abbreviations.
 
+ Fixed ship list so selecting a list item will select that ship and senter on it (or center on a planet if the ship is in orbit).

+ Modified the Custom Opponent screen so that adjusting an opponent's intelligence affects their financial resources and natural ability sliders in the Custom Personality screen, and vise versa.

+ Setup buttons for your "Special Ability" are disabled if you're not a custom race

+ Custom Ship Style Window, ships in available templates list will be filtered to show ships with the same hull capacity as the selected ship

+ Choose Opponents Window: “Edit” button will be disabled when all opponent slots are full and player selects a race from the available opponents list

+ Added a line break in overlays for fleets to break up text (like “Auto-pilot”) and the number of ships (makes it more centered, better looking)

+ AI Ships that are working on an asteroid mining base will not display the number of turns it will take for them to complete the job

+ You can no longer talk to civs that do not want to talk to you by using the arrow buttons in the trade screen.  This will now skip over civs that do not want to talk

+ Races will decide not to talk to you only if you actually make a deal with them.  If you open the screen and then close it, you can still return to talk to them.

+ Added 2 new Korath diplomacy movies

+ Asteroid field mining base overlays would display the name of the base after CheckForDefections was called
  + Asteroid field mining bases do not use overlays, so the old overlay updating code has been commented out
  + UpdateAsteroidFieldTurn was checking the status of NeedToUpdateOverlayIcons, NeedToUpdateLines, NeedToUpdateGfx but was not clearing these flags after updating
  + Asteroid field mining bases were not having their bonus lines or gfx updated

+ Fixed bug where planet overlay icons were not updated after neutral alignment caused the planet to be terra-formed.  It would still show no free tiles.  Now it shows that tiles are available.

+ Tech milestone nodes were not drawn properly if the first milestone was researched, but other milestones were

+ Dreadlords will use battleship shipcfg for its dreadnaught ships.  They do not have a dreadnaught shipcfg file so I made the change in their ship style file so they will use battleships instead.

+ Asteroid mining bases and planets that defect will be updated immediately after closing the Defection message window

+ Fixed bug where asteroid fields could get created on top of planets or other objects

+ Bug where both left and right clicking popped up info box in maximized tech screen

+ Bug on opponent screen, where Edit button would be disabled if there was only one opponent selected

+ If a space miner is on an asteroid that cannot be improved, the "Automate" button is now available

+ AI civs will use their ship style templates to create their initial ships

+ Survey Ships can now be designated in the custom ship style screen

+ If you do not have any user-defined templates, a message will pop up the first time you go to custom ship style screen and tell you how to create your own templates

+ When the game creates an AI ship and puts components on it, it will first check to see if the part is already on the ship.  If it is, it will not add it, unless there is not enough of the part on the ship

+ Setup screens will show the AI colony ship template if you are customizing an opponent, and the regular core colony ship if you are customizing your player

+ Added new survey core ship templates for each race (all ship styles are set to use these, except DreadLords which use a frigate template)

+ Fixed bug that caused incorrect thumbnail gfx to be displayed in custom ship style window

+ Fixed potential crash when selecting ship templates in custom ship style window

+ Fixed bug in research screen that did not allow you to select milestones by dbl-clicking them

+ Added a tooltip to the Domestic Espionage screen to show how your espionage spending amount is calculated, (ie. percent of income devoted to espionage + civ espionage ability)

+ Hooked up new button on planet screen for nullifying agents that will only show up if you've selected a sector with an agent on it, and will only be enabled if you have an agent to use for nullifying

+ Added a tooltip for the planet screen's nullify agent button that'll show you how many available agents you have

+ Fixed Bug in sector mapper: CheckForStuckInStack was returning true if a single ship was on a stack with dead ships. Now it ignores dead ships.

+ When you conquer a planet that was a civilization capital, the civ capital improvement remains on that planet and you get the bonuses

+ When you trade or acquire a civilization capital planet through culture, the civ capital improvement remains on that planet and you get the bonuses

+ Fixed string crash on Foreign Report Wnd

+ Fixed crash when loading custom maps

+ Fixed bug in Ship Designer where when using some canned templates, certain parts would not show up on the template

+ Fixed bug in Ship Designer where when upgrading a ship, or using a template, the designer would not list icons for all components, making it impossible to remove certain parts from the design

+ Fix to AI special planet evaluation

+ made Mega Events on by default

+ fixed bug where RaceWnd always selected Terrans

+ made toggle music hotkey work without shift key

+ made F11 toggle max/min starmap instead of just maximizing it.

+ Planets now use pre-made height maps in the height maps folder
  + If height map is not found, it will be generated
  + Height maps will be recycled to save memory

+ Added new option to the Options screen (unchecked by default): Force AI to use max CPU

+ Added support for the following buttons to the ship design screen:

+ CTRL+ARROW KEYS:  Rotates camera   (just like on main map)

+ Fixed +/- zoom keys in ship design screen

+ Starport and Ship Yard screens now have keyboard support: (same key shortcuts as ship design screen, minus the ship-design-specific keys)
  + [1] Default view
  + [2] Front view
  + [3] Side view
  + [4] Top view
  + [+] Zoom out
  + [-] Zoom in
  + [CTRL] + Arrow keys, rotate camera

+ If you click on a segment in a tech group, the next milestone you can research in that group will be selected, but the information displayed will be displayed for the segment you clicked on.  For example, if you click on Sensors III, but Sensors I is the only one available for research, you will begin researching sensors I, but the info displayed will be for sensors III.  This prevents accidentally not changing techs, because you clicked on the wrong segment in the group.

+ made overall difficulty re-calculate if the intelligence is changed from the CustomPersonalityWnd

+ Fixed bug where starbases did not inflict damage on attacking ships, and thus could not kill them

+ Fixed bug where starbases inflicted more damage than the hit points on the attacking ship

+ Tweaks to some of the mega events to make them not quite as overwhelming

+ Planet Screen: removed sfx when clicking on the improvement list

+ Fixed bug where number of opponents was not remembered from game to game

+ Changed old “Space Truck” ability string to “Build Mines on Asteroid Fields”

+ Bug where declaring war when using spore ship would cause invasion dialog to pop up

+ Players will now always get a unique song when starting a Dark Avatar game

+ made it so that if the AI trades for terraforming techs, it will call AutoTerraform from UpdateGalaxy

+ fixed bug where Force Max CPU Usage was ON by default

+ made CPU Usage High by default

+ added super ability to OpponentWnd

+ enabled tech groups

+ fixed espionage sliders

+ On the place agent screen, improvements that CAN have agents on them, will be highlighted with a green border

+ On the place agent screen, made it so tiles that can be terra-formed, soil improved, habitat improved, or built on will not be shown with a highlight

+ Fixed bug where if spore ship was in a fleet with other ships, and invaded a planet, the whole fleet would be destroyed instead of just the spore ship

+ changed number of agents needed to reach LOW, MED, and HIGH level of espionage to 3,6,9 instead of 1,2,3

+ fixed bug where Campaign would overwrite settings from last sandbox game

+ made trade routes save the year established